Machines of War: Exiles
by Meraki Minnesota
Summary: For four short years, they were our protectors. But twenty-seven years ago, they disappeared without a trace. Some people believed that they had fled to Cybertron, while others believed they were hiding among humans in secret. With the devastating return of the Decepticons back to Earth, it's time for the Autobots to rise up and once again defend humanity...


**Prologue: Dreams**

* * *

"_What's the matter, Chip?_" "_I guess I was hoping Devastator might join the Autobots for good, but that's probably just a dumb old dream._" "_Hang on your dreams, Chip. The future is built on dreams. Hang on._" —Optimus Prime and Chip Chase, "the Core"

* * *

_August, 2001; Carson City, Nevada_

Bedtime.

That word alone was enough to make parents around the world cringe. That one word could recall painful and trying experiences of screaming matches and fruitless attempts to get children to calm down enough to fall asleep.

Quentin heard often from his parents that he used to be a hellion to put to bed; as a toddler he would scream bloody murder until he was too exhausted to continue, and as a kid he would chatter his parents' ears off until _they_ fell asleep and he would be free for a little while longer until he was caught. His mother placed the infamous "mother's curse" on him to have a child just like him when he was a parent, something he laughed off till his own daughter was born. And right from the very beginning, he knew that he was going to get his payback for those years.

And he did. Kendra proved to be every bit the screamer he had been and was quite the fighter when she wanted to be, all fiery like her mom and every bit as determined as he was. Those moments had been trying on his patience as a new father but he found himself missing the wailing little girl more often as he watched her grow before his eyes. Every time he saw her, she seemed to be just a few inches taller and little more mature and less childlike. Since their time was now limited due to the divorce, Quentin found himself cherishing every moment with Kendra and was pushing bedtime off as long as he could. Kendra didn't protest in the least; it meant that he would tell her the stories she loved so dearly.

"Alright kiddo, which story do you want to hear this time?"

His ten year old daughter contemplated the question seriously from where she was nestled at his side, one of his strong arms around her to hold her close. The two were settled comfortably on her twin sized bed, resting against the simple backboard.

"Tell me the story about when the Autobots and the Decepticons came to Earth. When you were a little kid, like me." She finally decided, glancing up at him with the brown eyes she had inherited from him. Quentin couldn't help but grin as the hand wrapped around his daughter went to stroke her red hair lovingly. She had heard this story hundreds times, but somehow, it never ceased to be her favorite.

"Again? Kendra, you could probably tell _me_ the story."

"No, I want you to tell me the story. You tell it the best." Kendra insisted, gazing at her father with pleading eyes. Yes, she had heard the story many, many times but it made her feel like she was reliving that magical time when the Transformers walked among men, the giant heroes who protected mankind. _That_ was why it never ceased to be her favorite story and why she pled for it as often as she could when she had time with her father.

"You sure?" He asked. Kendra nodded firmly. Quentin was quiet for a moment, getting into his storytelling mode, before he spoke.

""The Transformers were here a long time before I was born, but they first appeared when I was only a year older than you." He began, leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling as he talked in a soft voice. Kendra snuggled in closer to her father's side as her own gaze fell to the bed, her physical eyes being replaced by her imagination's eye. No longer was she in bed; she was in 1984 in her father when he was a little boy.

"Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Elliot and Uncle Christen and I still lived here when I was in middle school. I came running home with Uncle Elliot after school and we went outside to go play when Uncle Christen told us to come inside. On the TV, there was this amazing story about these giant, metal men who had saved the lives of oil rig workers in the Pacific Ocean when the rig exploded. They said they were aliens, beings from another world, who were more advanced than humanity could ever become…but even though they were aliens, they looked like us. Two arms, two legs, a head…and they even spoke our language.

"But what was really amazing was what they could do that we couldn't; they could transform. They could take the shape and appearance of technology and behave just like them too; most of them became cars, really cool and powerful cars. Porsches and Lamborghinis and Datsuns…my brothers and I memorized every car that they ever were, every single one. And when the toys came out, we'd take the cars out and drive them around the backyard, saving the universe from the evil forces of the Decepticons and Megatron. I was always Jazz and Uncle Elliot and Christen were always Optimus and Ironhide. Together, we were the three invincible heroes."

"Did you ever see them?" Kendra asked softly, completely mesmerized. Quentin shook his head.

"We never did, but Billie across the street did when she went to New York one time. She told us all about it when she got home, but she was all stuck up and acted like she was better than us because she got to see them and we didn't. So we always made her Megatron in our stories when we played."

"You made Megatron a _girl_?" She asked skeptically, looking at her father.

"Well, he wasn't exactly a girl in our stories." He amended as he glanced down at his daughter. "He just acted a lot like Billie, and Billie was a girl." Appeased, Kendra settled back into his side as Quentin settled back into the story. "Anyway, it was like that, for three years…aliens who walked among humans. But then everything changed." The tone of his voice dropped and became more serious. Kendra tensed and balled her fists on the blanket covers. She knew where this was going and she always dread this part of the story. "They showed up less and less in public. They still helped us and kept us safe from the Decepticons, but they didn't spend as much time with us. When they weren't protecting us, they were in their ship, doing their own thing and keeping their distance. And then all of a sudden, one day…they were gone. They got on their ship and left for the stars."

"Why were they leaving?" She asked curiously, frowning quizzically. "Was something wrong?"

"I'm not sure." Quentin admitted, shifting a little to get more comfortable. "We never really found out, though people thought they were going back to their home, hundreds of light years away in another galaxy. They were probably homesick after being on Earth for so long."

"Like when I'm back in Washington with Mom and I miss you." Kendra compared. Quentin smiled and rubbed her head affectionately, placing a kiss on the top of her hair.

"Yes, probably a lot like that. They had been here a very long time, even before humans. I would miss my home if I had been gone that long too."

"Did they make it home?"

Quentin sighed, his mind going back to that day in 1987. He had just entered high school. "No. They never did. I still remember that day like it was yesterday; I was fourteen years old, just coming home from school. Uncle Christen got home before Uncle Elliot and I did, and he called us in as soon as we got home…and we watched the TV all day long. Even Grandma did, and she didn't like watching TV. Their ship…it had blown up in the atmosphere after the Decepticons attacked it. It crashed in the forests of Europe in a fiery explosion, with no possible survivors."

"Thay didn't die, did they?" She asked him anxiously. The great heroes of her story…they couldn't be dead. It was _impossible_.

He smiled. "No, they didn't. When workers went to the crash site…they didn't find any frames or bodies anywhere in the wreckage. According to reporters, data recovered from the ship's computer revealed that there was no one on board. Which meant-"

"-that they were still alive!" His daughter finished, brown eyes sparkling and a big smile splitting her face. It changed a second later when her young face scrunched up in confusion. "But then, where did they go?"

"See, now that's the big mystery." He told her as he touched the tip of her nose. "Nobody knows where they are, not even the government. But they're still out there, somewhere. Hiding in plain sight. They could be any car, even the ones we drive."

"Does that mean Grandma's car could be an Autobot?!" The girl asked excitedly, bouncing away from her father's side to stare at him with wide, excited eyes.

"I don't know, but maybe." He leaned in close with a devilish smile and a gleam in his eye. "Which one do you think it is?" He whispered, like he was asking about a big secret and didn't want anyone to know.

She thought for a moment, thinking of the old blue-gray Ford sitting in the driveway, before she said with absolute certainty, "Kup." That had her father laughing loudly, his head thrown back with laughter. Kendra giggled with him.

"I think you may be right." He told her. The car was certainly old enough to be the old story-telling bot and it even had a similar color scheme.

"I don't think that old, beat-up thing could be an Autobot, but you never know." Both father and daughter looked up to see an older woman smiling at the two from the doorway of the room, her brown hair streaked with long gray sections. "That thing does have a lot of personality for a piece of metal."

"True; Frankie does have his quirks." Quentin answered his mother, referring to the old car by its affectionate nickname of Frankenstein. "But we love him for it. That thing's seen road trips, dates, moving, births…heck, he's practically family."

"Don't tell me you're attached to him emotionally." The woman replied with a grin. "You might need to go get your head examined if you keep talking like that. It's not healthy." Quentin mock pouted before pulling Kendra into a hug and kissing her on the crown of her head.

"Don't listen to Grandma; she's crazy." He told her, shooting a playful grin at his mother. Kendra giggled a little as her grandmother rolled her eyes in response.

"I want Grandma's car to be an Autobot; can it be an Autobot?" Kendra asked, glancing between the adults with hopeful eyes. Quentin looked down at his daughter.

"It can be whatever you want it to be Kendra." He told her, a smile on his face but his tone completely serious. "Anything can be whatever you want it to be. Don't forget that, alright?" He gazed at her expectantly and Kendra nodded her understanding. "Good."

"Quentin," the older woman's voice broke the moment between the two, reclaiming their attention. "Aimee wants to talk to you." While she still smiled at her son and granddaughter, Quentin could hear the note of seriousness in her words. He nodded slightly at her and then playfully turned his attention back to his daughter.

"Alright kiddo, time to go to bed. You've got a big day tomorrow and we want you to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for it!" He tickled her for a moment, eliciting giggles from his daughter, before she laid down and he helped tuck her into the warm blankets. "Sleep good Kendra. I love you."

"I love you too." She told him, her eyes watching as her father got off the bed and exited the room, his backside disappearing around the corner with a pace that betrayed his apprehension. Something was going on that the grownups weren't telling her, something that had her dad upset and her mother scared. Even Grandma was worried.

The warm smile was still on her grandmother's face as she turned to face her granddaughter again, one hand reaching out to pull the door shut as the other shut off the light. "Sleep good Kendra. We'll see you in the morning."

"Grandma?"

"Yes Kendra?" The woman asked, pausing the door's progress.

"Where do you think the Autobots are now?"

Her grandmother didn't answer immediately, considering the question and what her granddaughter was truly trying to ask.

"I think," she finally said. "They're still here with us, watching over us and keeping us safe. I don't know where they are, but I know they're here." She smiled at her daughter, the gesture barely visible in the light of the hallway. "Sleep good, okay?"

The little girl nodded as the door finally closed, placing her in complete darkness. Not that she was scared; she was rarely scared. Instead, she snuggled deeper into the covers and closed her eyes as images of giant, metal robots danced behind her eyelids and into her dreams.

* * *

"_Quentin?_" The familiar voice of his ex-wife on the other end of the phone greeted him apprehensively as soon as he picked up the phone. Not a good sign.

Aimee and he rarely talked about each other's personal life except where it involved Kendra, but surprisingly, Aimee confided to Quentin and his family that Aimee had gone to visit the doctor about her growing suspicions she was ill a few weeks ago. She hadn't told them why she thought so or what she thought it was, but she had asked them to watch Kendra while she waited for the results to come back. Quentin had agreed on the promise that Aimee tell him what was going on when those results did come back, something she had reluctantly agreed to.

Now came the moment of truth.

"Aimee? Are you alright? Did you find out-?"

"_Where's Kendra? Is she okay?_" Aimee cut him off, her tone demanding but not unkind. Her worry was easy to hear, even through the phone, and Kendra was always the first thing on her mind. Quentin didn't judge her; she was always the first thing on his mind too.

"Asleep. Aimee, what's going on? What did the doctor say?"

"_I…h-he said…oh, God…_" On the other end of the phone, he could hear the struggle Aimee was going through to get the words out. She sounded perilously close to tears.

"Aimee?" he asked gently when she didn't finish. A cold hard knot sat in the bottom of his gut but he ignored it the best he could.

"_The results came back._" Aimee managed to finally say, her voice breaking on the words. Quentin unconsciously held his breath as the knot got colder and harder. Some part of him didn't want to hear the ending of that statement, but another part needed to know no matter how bad it got. "_Quinn…I…I have advanced breast cancer._"

* * *

_The first chapter of Machines of War out! I'm so excited!_

_To let you all know what's going on, Machines of War is a combined continuity that contains G1, the Michael Bay movies, Prime, the Unicron Triology and pieces of any of the other continuities in there, but with my own story twist thrown into it. There will be many bots that will be from other continuities that you may not have heard of and seem like OC's, but I will always specify OC's for you guys. Exiles is the first part of this series set on Earth, and there will be several pre-Earth stories in the Cybertron section of Machines of War._

_Please do not steal any ideas. I do not own Transformers (although I wish). _

_I will post quotes at the beginning of every chapter, something inspired by **Vaeru**. I completely recommend checking our her stories **Transformers: Juxtaposition **and **Transformers: Schism**._


End file.
